retold that she would lose to the northern
Republic her West Indian possessions remained unfulfilled. At last, at
the close of one of the bloodiest and most brutal wars that even Spain
ever waged with her own colonists, the United States intervened, and
in a brief summer campaign destroyed the last vestiges of the mediaeval
Spanish domain in the tropic seas alike of the West and the remote
East.

We of this generation were but carrying to completion the work of our
fathers and of our fathers' fathers. It is moreover a matter for just
pride that while there was no falling off in the vigor and prowess
shown by our fighting men, there was a marked change for the better in
the spirit with which the deed was done. The backwoodsmen had pushed
the Spaniards from the Mississippi, had set up a slave-holding
republic in Texas, and had conquered the Californian gold-fields, in
the sheer masterful exercise of might. It is true that they won great
triumphs for civilization no less than for their own people; yet they
won